I just returned from a birding expedition to Central Texas a few days ago.  My intention had been to process the photos I took there and post some of those to my blog, but on April 30 (2016) I was able to sit in the yard for a couple of hours for purposes of some bird observation.  Over the course of 2.5 hours I tallied 22 species and took 191 photographs, 96 of which I saved after processing.  Such is the luxury of a 4T external hard drive.  Here are some of the better photos I took:

The American goldfinches arrived just before I departed for Texas.  They make good subject matter for photographs!  Here are a few photos of male goldfinches:

This is a photo of a female American goldfinch:

Here are photos of male and female House sparrows.  The box in which they usually attempt to nest is this year being occupied by a House wren.  (This represents a large improvement!)

Here is the House wren:

And here is the House wren making the nest-building process much more difficult than it has to be.  It seems the wren has an affinity for sticks that are too long for the lodgings, but it usually manages to wrestle them into the nest box!  I may try to obtain some better photos of the nest-building process on Sunday.

A male Downy woodpecker that visited one of the bird baths…

A female Rufous hummingbird that stopped by the watercourse for a bath.  We have male and female Rufous hummingbirds and male and female Anna’s hummingbirds.

And finally, a female Yellow-rumped warbler that also took a quick break in the watercourse.

In past years I have usually considered the Wilson’s warbler to be our most frequent visitor,  but this year I have yet to see one.